Manish Bahl's Blog

The continued economic viability of software development in India, whether by independent software vendors (ISVs) or “captive” business units, depends less on pure labor arbitrage and more on delivering time-to-market advantage for clients. The pressure of meeting business expectations demands that software firms harness creative capability wherever they can find it. The increased focus on Business Technology innovation and customer experience over mere cost savings presents both a threat and an opportunity to software configuration and development business units (BUs) in India.This is the key finding from my just-published report.

Forrester developed its software innovation assessment workbook to assess software innovation capability of firms. We provided this tool to members of NASSCOM (the industry association for the IT BPO sector in India), comprising both ISVs and captive development BUs in India, and surveyed them to assess the most important process, organizational, cultural, geographical, and staffing practices that promote software innovation. We also interviewed a dozen selected respondents in greater depth to better understand how innovation capability contributes to business success in India. We found evidence of widespread adoption of the practices correlated with software innovation capability, helping to drive a rapidly changing role for Indian business in the global software supply chain.

Innovators in India that were engaged in software development and configuration received high scores for many of the practices that drive effective innovation. They demonstrated strength in:

On February 22, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), an institution that supervises and regulates India’s financial sector, announced guidelines allowing corporations to enter the banking sector. Private companies, public-sector groups, and nonbanking financial firms will all be eligible to apply for a banking license. We expect RBI to start issuing new bank licenses by early 2014.

RBI guidelines state that companies receiving a banking license must open at least 25% of their branches in rural areas. Despite this guideline, I believe that new entrants will primarily target the same urban and semi-urban customers that existing banks target. The reason is simple: These are the most profitable customers. This helps explain why 85% of rural bank branches in India belong to public banks; it’s simply not an attractive market for private banks.

What it means for current Indian banking CIOs: Leverage big data to grow your business or prepare to be left behind.

As competition increases, businesses will expect new IT capabilities to understand and respond to customer needs better, faster, and cheaper. Banking CIOs who embrace this change will adopt big data technologies and become true business partners. The ones who don’t will be bypassed by new entrants (when they come to play) using big data approaches and internal data from whatever market they’re currently in to analyze the banking market. These new entrants will likely influence customer preferences, question existing assumptions, and look for ways to disrupt the market. I recommend that current Indian banking CIOs: